A U.S. airbase west of Baghdad faced an attack on Tuesday, prompting a response from a U.S. military aircraft in self-defense, according to two U.S. officials. This marks the first instance of U.S. retaliation on Iraqi soil in response to numerous recent militant drone and missile attacks targeting American forces. The Ain al-Asad airbase suffered minor injuries and infrastructure damage during the attack, with U.S. forces utilizing an AC-130 gunship in their response.
Previously, the U.S. had limited its reaction to attacks on its forces in Iraq and neighboring Syria, attributed to Iran-aligned Iraqi militia groups, through three separate sets of strikes in Syria. These attacks, commencing on Oct. 17, have been associated by Iraqi militia groups with U.S. support for Israel amid the Gaza conflict.
The recent strikes against U.S. targets mark the end of a year-long unilateral truce declared by Iraqi factions formed in response to the 2003 U.S. invasion and later in 2014 to combat the Islamic State, both in collaboration with Washington. This latest incident, reported as the first U.S. strike in Iraq in over two years, resulted in the first reported casualty linked to the Gaza war in Iraq. The “Islamic Resistance in Iraq” mourned a member killed in Tuesday’s battle against U.S. forces.
The ongoing attacks have drawn in various factions within Iran’s network of regional militias, known as the Axis of Resistance, including Lebanon’s Hezbollah. Since Oct. 17, U.S. and international forces in the global coalition combating the remnants of the Islamic State have been targeted over 60 times in Iraq and Syria, causing minor injuries to dozens of U.S. servicemen who have all returned to duty. The U.S. maintains 900 troops in Syria and 2,500 in Iraq, pursuing a mission aimed at advising and assisting local forces in preventing the resurgence of the Islamic State.
